It's a pretty schematic plot. Brando spends a couple of resentful years in a VA hospital as a paraplegic. His mates in the ward illustrate the variety of fortunes available to a veteran stuck in a wheelchair with no feeling in the lower part of his body. Richard Erdmann, the wise guy, supports his weakling father. The educated Jim Webb gets taken for a ride by a bimbo just out for his money. Angel, the good patient who works hard and is both realistic and optimistic, dies when a piece of shrapnel buried in his spine shifts. Brando is the vet who learns from the others to overcome his self disgust, his shame, and marries his long-time girlfriend, Theresa Wright. No more shame, no more illusions either.
The movie depends largely on Brando's performance in this, his first film. He does alright, but not much more than that. He's different from what any other contemporary actor might have been, but not necessarily better.
By 1950 Brando was already an established Broadway star, and he was shortly to give some of the most startling and magnetic performances ever put on celluloid in films like "Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront," among a handful of others. In "The Men" we can see the mannerisms -- the beetling of the brows, the biting of the lip, the glances flickering out of the corners of his eyes. But it isn't a subtle or nuanced performance. If he is supposed to look thoughtful, he doesn't embody confusion and anguish the way Terry Malloy would. He looks like an actor who has been told to look thoughtful. The substance is missing.
He gets professional support from the other players, except for the patients who were obviously recruited into their parts from the real VA hospital in the San Fernando Valley. The script is not a big help though -- no big tag lines. No "contendahs" or -- my God -- no speeches about coming to bury Caesar not to praise him, which he was to deliver in another year or two in the most peerless fashion. I don't mean to suggest that this is a clumsy film or that it's poorly written. Witness the scene in which Wright's parents discourage her from going through with the marriage. Her mother and father might easily have been written as cheap stereotypes but instead they come across as caring for her.
It's a worthwhile subject, though, paraplegia. It was a common problem in the post-war years. My uncle was in that boat. What do you do when you have an accident with your bowels and you're in the middle of Port Authority in New York? You try to look casual, sit down quietly, and without making a fuss you try to clean up with your handkerchief or your coat whatever little mess you have created. That's what you do. And of course the problem addressed goes far beyond the limits of paraplegia. How about visible scars from bad burns? An amputated limb? A deforming skin disorder? Anyone interested ought to read Erving Goffman's "Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity."
The movie depends largely on Brando's performance in this, his first film. He does alright, but not much more than that. He's different from what any other contemporary actor might have been, but not necessarily better.
By 1950 Brando was already an established Broadway star, and he was shortly to give some of the most startling and magnetic performances ever put on celluloid in films like "Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront," among a handful of others. In "The Men" we can see the mannerisms -- the beetling of the brows, the biting of the lip, the glances flickering out of the corners of his eyes. But it isn't a subtle or nuanced performance. If he is supposed to look thoughtful, he doesn't embody confusion and anguish the way Terry Malloy would. He looks like an actor who has been told to look thoughtful. The substance is missing.
He gets professional support from the other players, except for the patients who were obviously recruited into their parts from the real VA hospital in the San Fernando Valley. The script is not a big help though -- no big tag lines. No "contendahs" or -- my God -- no speeches about coming to bury Caesar not to praise him, which he was to deliver in another year or two in the most peerless fashion. I don't mean to suggest that this is a clumsy film or that it's poorly written. Witness the scene in which Wright's parents discourage her from going through with the marriage. Her mother and father might easily have been written as cheap stereotypes but instead they come across as caring for her.
It's a worthwhile subject, though, paraplegia. It was a common problem in the post-war years. My uncle was in that boat. What do you do when you have an accident with your bowels and you're in the middle of Port Authority in New York? You try to look casual, sit down quietly, and without making a fuss you try to clean up with your handkerchief or your coat whatever little mess you have created. That's what you do. And of course the problem addressed goes far beyond the limits of paraplegia. How about visible scars from bad burns? An amputated limb? A deforming skin disorder? Anyone interested ought to read Erving Goffman's "Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity."